“A fire?” I repeat, “someone set fire to the timberyard?!”“It appears to be.” Oliver remarks, color slowly returning to his pale cheeks, “I only got the news moments before you two came along. It’s just…God, so unexpected. The place is destroyed!”We all stay silent in our shock for a long moment, trying to wrap our heads around this new development.The timberyard was large, as far as I was aware. It covered about a full two acres of land and employed about 1/6th of the population in Falenridge. It was an old business, dating from the 1960s if I remember correctly. At first, it was owned by a family hailing from Falenridge, but in the ‘90s they went bankrupt and sold the timberyard to a mass logging company. After that, the rate of tree-cutting increased, and so did the number of jobs available in the logging industry in this area.“How much is the damage?” I ask Oliver, who started at the sound of my voice as if he had been drowning in his own thoughts, “how serious is this fire? D

“Jace, what the hell!” Oliver squawked, “you can't actually be thinking about going through with this!”It has been three days since the Falenridge timberyard had been burnt to cinders. By now, the embers had cooled and blackened, and the yellow tape was removed so the cleaning process could begin. The police were still investigating the grounds of the crime scene, and so far, they had figured out that the fire was manmade, and whoever started it used a copious amount of gasoline to set the material on fire. However, the extent of the damage was too much for just gasoline to make in such a short time, so the police were investigating what other things could possibly set such a large-scale fire to the timber yard.Of course, when I first talked about my idea to buy the destroyed place, Coraline and Oliver had brushed it off. There were other things to take care of, such as our own construction site. After hanging around and offering our thoughts and regards to Paul and the rest of the

The young man who regards me from near the cashier’s stand in the Mountain treasures gift shop, glaring at me with unabashed hostility is someone who had accompanied Marty the nightguard and Paul the manager the day I had been accused of being a delinquent trying to break into the timber yard. I remember his face faintly as it looked at the scene with disdain while I was shoved into a police car to be taken and imprisoned. After the whole fiasco with the timber yard, meeting Paul’s son and now the power, I’d begun to think that the vandalism accusation incident was behind me.But judging by the thousand-megawatt glare I was receiving, it seemed to be unlikely.Crap.“What are you doing here?” The blond-haired grey eyed young man hisses, taking a step away from me.“Seeing as I’m in a gift shop, it has to be obvious,” I can’t help but reply, “I’m here to buy an item in order to gift it to someone.”I didn’t think it was possible for his eyes to narrow more, but I’m proven wrong.“Reall

The woman wears a shirt with the logo ‘Mountain treasures’ printed on it and a pair of blue-washed jeans. Her hair is piled on the top of her head in a ponytail and her eyes are framed by clunky glasses. She looks about the same age as Oliver is and looks from Craig back to me with an expression of acute confusion.“Ma’am,” before Craig can get a word in, I say, “allow me to introduce myself. My name is Jace Greyson, and I’m the manager at the hunting lodge construction project going on in the mountains.”“You’re a what now?” The young man, Craig squeaks.“Um, okay, hello, Mr. Greyson,” The woman replied, tilting her head in puzzlement, “I’m Carrie, and my husband owns this store. What seems to be the issue here?”“He's lying to you, Miss!” Craig finds his footing, “I saw him for the first time at the timber yard, he was arrested for trying to break in and trespassing. Marty and Paul themselves called the police. He’s in cahoots with the criminals who set fire to the timber yard, and

They light a match and then they light a lap from it. It’s an old kerosene lamp, used for so long that the glass is covered in soot and black. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such things being used in the present day, only in movies and in museums. The lights burn my sensitive eyes, and I crush them shut for a moment. For some reason, the movement makes my headache even more severe, and I have to bite my lips to hold back a groan.“Shit, chief,” says the voice that broke the silence, “I think he’s worse off than we thought.”“Fuck,” another voice replies, sounding frustrated, “well, we can’t have him like that. How severe do you think is the wound?”“It’s still bleeding.”I open my eyes slowly, letting them assimilate to the light. But before I could register the scene in front of me, I find myself asking the men, “who…who are you?”My vision is blurry, but I can make out two human-shaped blobs in front of me. They both seem to be of the same height, and their faces are covered with some